


Making of

by Emmuzka



Series: Making of [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg, Phil Kessel hates everyhing, Phil Kessel hates the media, eating issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4133013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmuzka/pseuds/Emmuzka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil might not have parental instincts, but he could god damn learn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making of

**Author's Note:**

> This fic’s working title was “Phil Hates Everything, Mpreg Edition.” (Also known as _Quick, before he gets traded_ ) And that’s about it. 
> 
> If you are worried about the tags, there is additional description of the possible triggers at the end notes.

The puck was about to drop when a commotion in the Leafs’ bench drew Phil’s attention. It was one of the first pre games and everyone was itching to get it on, so Phil wasn’t the only one to get straight away irked by the interruption.

It was Dr. Noah Forman, the team doctor, and one of the athletic trainers, explaining something to Babcock. Their wild looks and wide hand gestures towards the ice now drew the attention of the referees, too, and the start of the game was put on hold.

 _What now?_ Phil searched Bozie’s eyes to get his attention, but all of the guys were looking at the heated but still oddly hushed conversation that went on.

A minute later Babcock raised his gaze to the ice and in search for... Him? 

_What?_ Phil gestured, shrugging his shoulders.

 _You. Come here. Now._ Babcock's gesturing couldn't be understood wrong, and Phil left his position to skate to the bench. He stayed on the ice, however. 

"You-." Babcock had a wild look in his eyes. "Off the ice. You're scratched for this game." 

"What the fuck?" You never fucking pulled your players when they were already on ice. Phil let the anger sound in his voice even when he came off the ice and headed towards the entrance. Babcock looked now more sympathetic and tired than angry, but that didn't explain the really-fucking-late scratch. "Just get the fuck out of here, okay?" 

The two medics rushed toward him, but managed to stop quick enough to draw their hands back from touching him when they saw the look on Phil's face. Babcock had already sifted his attention back on the ice. Phil obviously wasn’t going to get an explanation for this from the man himself.

Phil did as he was told. The Doc Forman led the way and the trainer followed after Phil, like they were afraid that he'd go to a wrong direction if not herded. 

"So what is it? Can I change?" The only thing that came to Phil's mind was that he'd given a false positive on some kind of substance abuse. Still that couldn't be right? He hadn't given any samples today, at least not to his knowledge.

They let him change, though the hovering didn't lessen. Having a sudden babysitter to watch him change darkened his mood. Where they afraid that he’d be hiding evidence or something?

Then Phil’s cavalcade sat him down at the doctor's office and told him blah blah something and Phil couldn’t hear the words for the rushing of blood to his head, and he couldn’t understand them, because were they saying that he might be pregnant?

"No, I'm not." Firstly, it wasn’t supposed to be possible. He wasn't supposed to be fit enough for that, he had had cancer for fuck sake. And secondly, _fuck no._

"Yesterday's sample came back positive, so you might be."

Phil felt woozy. He lowered his head down between his legs. "But I might not be." There was always hope.

"Well... We know that the test isn't always accurate, but if it says positive, it usually is. And even if you wouldn’t be, we can't let you back on the ice as long as there is the smallest chance that you could be pregnant."

Phil hid his face on his hands. What he felt wasn’t for the medics to see. _Fucked. He was so totally fucked._

***

At the time when the human reproduction went haywire, global fertility rates had already been falling a long time. The number of population wasn’t in serious decline, but fewer and fewer people were able to conceive. Those who could were just having a larger number of children. It was said that the pollution was to blame for the shrinking gene pool, but no-one knew for certain. 

Then, a miracle happened. Or an abomination, or an evolutionary leap, depending on what history telling you preferred. 

Men started to get pregnant, and to give birth viable, healthy children. They were all boys and had only one genetic parent. Missing genetic variation, they were all the exact genetic copies of their fathers.

The phenomenon was named a single genetic parent pregnancy, with a single genetic parent and a single genetic parent child. The names were quickly shortened to a single parent, -child and -pregnancy, no matter how grossly dis-informative and anti-feminist the terms were. 

At first, the births were denied even happening. Then it was a thing to keep quiet about, something to be ashamed of. It took a couple of decades for their occurrence to settle somewhere near every hundred pregnancy. No-one knew the actual timetable for the number of single genetic parent pregnancies to settle all over the world as it was unknown how many terminations were done under the radar or in complete secrecy at the time. 

The men that ended up spontaneously seeding and carrying, tended to be between twenty and thirty five of age, and generally lacking biological children. (That a larger-than-average portion of the reproducing males were probably gay, hence the lack of biological offspring, was a thing that just wasn't discussed in public.) 

Then, the atmosphere towards the single parents and children changed. It took a few years, an economic downpour, a rise of the religious middle class, and a few single children born to rich, influential or famous males, and suddenly the single children were a god's plan. 

Now, having a single child was a mark of the parent being genetically superior. The nature, or God if you wanted to believe so, truly wanted especially this genetic material to continue till the next generation. Suddenly it was easy to believe in Intelligent Design. You saw all the successful, famous single fathers and thought, _that must be true_ , right? They had to be chosen ones. And if there wasn't anything to really be proud of, well, it was about the genetic _potential_ that some greater plan needed to continue for the next generation. 

Scientists argued that outside all the males being in good health, there was really no proof that the selection of who ended up with a child wasn't anything than completely random. The most brave scientists even went to public to announce that the population growth now tipping to an abundance of males, and human race continuing with now a lesser genetic variation, was actually a really, extremely, bad thing. But it was too late. Single children were now almost universally thought to be a proof of nature's selection with a greater plan and a path towards a better human race even in the genetic level.

In United States, the legal system already had had a religious basis. With the atmosphere change, it didn't take long for the single child parents to gain rights previously unheard of in the States. You got free health care during the pregnancy, with other social services if needed. No employer could fire a single parent because of his pregnancy. Government paid him a six month parental leave with 80% pay up till a hundred thousand dollars a year, and after that, another six month leave was available with 50% or previous pay, or a 50% work week. 

All this goodness was available for all single genetic child parents, never mind the unfair special treatment that a few women activists dared to voice out. Single parents were respected and whole communities took bride of their good luck children, offering help and gifts. All this, for the price of body autonomy. 

Now it was extremely illegal to abort a single child. In the same wave of new the religion-based law changes, abortions for females were also subjected to severe restrictions, but at least they were available under strict conditions. For males, there were no conditions. No money? Government would help you. In an unhealthy relationship? Single parents couldn’t get pregnant as a result of sexual violence. Health risk? You were chosen because you were healthy. Didn’t want a child? Give him to adoption, then. Just didn’t want to be pregnant, or birth a child? Too bad, because at least for a year, your body wasn’t yours to do what you wanted.

Where America went boldly, Canada cautiously followed. The nation’s gene pool diminishing was a genuine problem, and single parents were seen as nature’s possible curve ball, thrown in in the hopes of correcting the situation. In the end, in Canada it wasn’t that much about religious belief than about simple politics. For years Canada had been a safe haven for those that USA rejected, offering things like gay marriage. With single parents, they just couldn’t afford to be that. So far no country had dared to launch an openly announced policy of luring single parents from other countries with better benefits or more freedom. After Netherlands caused a serious international conflict between USA and EU by offering abortions to visiting Americans, America’s neighboring countries knew better than do anything else but follow. 

***

So that was that. The medics let him have his private breakdown and then one of them drove him home while the game was still on. They didn’t let him drive because of... Reasons? Phil didn’t know. Or maybe it was better that way, since he honestly didn’t remember much at all of that night. 

At some point Bozie had appeared on his door, bringing food from their regular steak house and a cloud of worry.

Bozie waited until they had the food on their plates, but then he just couldn’t anymore. “They didn’t say why you were pulled. And you didn’t answer your phone, so. Here I am. Can you tell me what was it?”

“Uh.” Should he keep quiet until they were sure? But really, if it was a false alarm, Phil couldn’t imagine never saying a word to anyone. And if it wasn’t… Well. “They pulled me because I might be pregnant.”

Bozie dropped his fork. “Shit! No way!”

“They got the latest testing results back and I guess mine came out positive. I’ll have an ultra sound in the morning, after that they can say for sure.”

“That would be the first in the NHL. Well, almost.” Bozie looked at him like Phil would suddenly look different to him. “Are you okay?”

No, he wasn’t, but it was not like he’d be doing something drastic right this second. “I guess, for now.” 

The thing was, Phil didn’t feel any different. Should he? Okay, he had actually felt like crap the last few weeks, but he’d thought it was a side effect of the training camp. He’d puked after the endurance tests, but everyone did that. It was _supposed_ to be a work-till-you-drop situation. 

So Phil had actually puked also in the mornings before camp, but he’d been more worried about handling the tests without any calories to burn to energy than the puking itself. He’d refused to complain about anything during the camp because he knew he’d been watched like a hawk. But he didn’t feel _pregnant_. At the moment he didn’t feel much like anything.

They all had been tested both at the beginning of the training camp, and when the pre seasons games started. Unfortunately the male pregnancy tests were still quite poor and gave false negatives. It was known that many times the first 100% confirmation of the pregnancy had been a heartbeat sound. Phil guessed that while the inaccuracy of the test was widely downplayed in the professional sports circles, some teams probably discreetly subjected their members to group ultra sound sessions, too. 

“Did they tell Babcock?” 

Of course they had. Doctor-patient confidentiality was muddled at best in male pregnancies, and Phil had already waved away that right when he signed to play in the NHL. Phil couldn’t now come up with any other reason for Mike to call him off the ice so near the game start. And also the look on his face had been a dead giveaway. 

“Yeah. Just, keep quiet about this, okay? No reason to go public if it after all turns out not to be true.” Or rather, Phil thought, as long as this thing was kept quiet, he’d have at least some options on what to do. If he was pregnant, and the media would find out, then there would be no going back. 

***

In the morning there was the ultra sound, an intimately uncomfortable situation because the fetus would have been too small to detect through stomach. Fortunately Phil had left Bozie in the waiting room, despite him offering to come with Phil to the room for support.

And fetus there was. Phil looked at the screen and tried to see a fetus there, but it was all blurry because he couldn’t concentrate, and the doctor was still doing unmentionable things in his lower region, and because he felt like crying. This was so far from his plans than it could be. Phil didn’t know what to feel. 

And that was that. He was congratulated, got a time for the next appointment and a list: No alcohol, no caffeine, no herbal remedies, only prescribed drugs and vitamins, no sauna, no contact with cat poo, no contact sports, no visiting sick children, no driving without seat belt lowering device, no unsupervised jarring exercises or physiotherapy, a ridiculous list of foods not to be eaten, and to top that, no to anything that caused stress. Right.

Bozie drove them to lunch before Phil’s next appointment in the head offices. Phil nibbled his steak sandwich, trying to come to a conclusion on his situation.

Phil didn't really want to have a child, and he especially didn't want to be pregnant, or the kid to be his genetic twin. He didn’t want to be NHL’s first single parent and all the attention that brought. Even the thought of being pregnant made him anxious.

On the other hand… Kids were nice, on a general level. He just held a hockey school for children the previous summer, and no-one died or anything. It had just never come to him that a child of his own would even be a possibility. How hard it could be? He’d lose a season but surely he could come back? Phil tried to remember if he’d read about any male professional athlete continuing or quitting after having a child, but didn’t come up with anything. 

So, maybe he would lose just this one season. People lost entire seasons for injuries all the time. And maybe he would just hire a nanny, or ask his mom to move closer or something. 

Phil felt his anxiety come back when he thought about the future. He had money, and with money came connections and options, some of them being straight illegal. But too many knew about this already. With most people actually believing the _special god's children_ thing, someone would call to police, or their priest, and Children’s’ Protective Services might get him before anything would be done. 

"Ripley belongs to the Church of Miracles”, Bozie named one of the front office managers. Church of Miracles was one of the few that figuratively, if not literally, cashed in with the male pregnancies the most. “I think that Johnson is a member, too." Bozie had an uncanny skill of knowing what Phil was thinking, and he’d followed the same line of thoughts as Phil.

"Fuck." Phil would rather had had people with dollars in their eyes and calculators in their hearts, thinking coldly about what was best for their franchise, but now there were too many religious people too close. Losing the fetus accidentally-on-purpose, or even going under the radar and then just giving the kid for adoption, were no longer options if the God’s-plan Miracle people were this close.

Phil set his food down. He wouldn’t be finishing it. “It shouldn’t have been me. I’ve had cancer. I shouldn’t be healthy enough, or special enough.”

“But here you are. Obviously healthy enough. And you don’t believe in that _being special_ crap, do you?”

“No, but I know a load of people that do.”

Well then. He was having a child. He could do it. And he’d do hella fine job with it. 

***

The headquarters were their next address. But instead of the management, the Leafs’ PR took them in. Or rather they took Phil, and uninvited Bozak from the room.

“So, congrats, Phil. You know that you have our full support in this.” It was Steve… Keogh? Phil remembered that he was the head of the Media Relations in Toronto Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment.

“But Phil, just as a heads-up. The thing where you don’t say anything? You can’t do that anymore. You can’t blow off the media with this, you’ll have to appear open, honest and available through this all. No matter what.”

“Worked so far.” It made Phil angry that the guy had him act like a petulant child within only a few sentences. 

“Phil, the media will blow up anyway, and they have to fill the space with something. If we don’t fill it, they will do it themselves. They’ll speculate, and they’ll stalk you and ask opinion of you from other players, and when that’s spent they’ll stalk you some more and make up anonymous sources and start asking opinions from pastors and politicians. We’ll have to own it, otherwise they’ll eat you up.”

Speculation hadn’t killed anyone so far. “Honestly, I don’t care what they’ll write.”

Steve looked like he wanted to pull his hair out. 

“I don’t have anything to say. I don’t see the story.” Phil truly didn’t. It was one guy, having a baby. Thousands of babies were born like that, this wasn’t a unique case.

“Then we’ll make the story up, because if we don’t, they’ll make it for you. You’ll have to get it, and get on board. This is really important. This ending with a happy note is really important for the whole league.”

 _Oh._ That, he got. It wasn’t really about him, but the franchise. 

Phil _getting it_ must have shown on his face, because Steve went on with a hint of relief in his voice. “So you work with us with this? Trust me, with us you’ll experience this as painlessly as possible. You might even enjoy the ride.”

Phil doubted it. “I’ll do what you think is the best.” He didn’t continue it with _for me_ because Keogh wasn’t about what was the best for him, it was about what was the best for them.

***

Eventually they let Phil leave with Bozie, after making him promise that he’d come back the next morning to hear the media plan that the PR team would undoubtedly concoction during the night. Still, Phil didn’t get it why one lone pregnancy was felt to be so important.

Bozie drove them home, Phil’s home. While Bozie haven’t lived with Phil for a while, only having spent an occasional night here or there after a long evening, he would now spend the night. They wouldn’t even have to talk about it. 

Bozie went straight to the couch and distracted Stella while Phil went to the kitchen. He took out two beers, then put them back and took two waters instead, plus a bag of peanuts because fuck you about high sodium. 

Bozie was caught being surprised by the water bottle, but recovered quickly. “No Gatorade?” 

“Those colors aren’t from nature. I don’t want my kid to have ADHD.” _His kid. Shit._

Bozie took his drink and settled down on the couch. “You know the shit storm last year, about the Penguins’ d-man, Maatta something, getting boarded badly and losing the single child he didn't know he was carrying at that time? That's the reason we pee in a cup every second week this season.”

Phil hadn’t known about that. “Yeah?”

“Remember the talks about banning contact in hockey, and boxing altogether, after that? We are still just one more pregnancy accident away from that.” 

_Huh._ Phil could see it now. If the pregnancy gene wouldn’t get found and the pregnancy testing get more accurate soon, there would eventually be the next case of inducing an accidental abortion by playing rough sports. And if the political atmosphere was riding the current train when it would happen, it could be that professional contact sports might get banned altogether. On a larger scale, boxing and even hockey might still be lesser sports, but NFL and all motor racing sports were where the big money laid, and they were probably scared shitless right now. 

“So everyone and their dog has a fucking huge interest in my thing ending well?”

“Yep! And also, because you could sue them no matter what happens. For hazardous work environment and not conducting adequate pre-measures, or shit like that. Which could, again and in theory, close their shop.” 

Yeah, really not a good idea. “Not going to sue them, buddy. Basically we’re all trying to get to the other side with minimum damage, and we both have to have some faith that one doesn’t try to throw the other under the buss.”

“You have more faith than me, man.”

Phil had his doubts, but he had to trust someone. He wouldn’t be able to do this alone. 

***

Now that Phil had truly decided to have the baby, or rather it being decided for him, he knew that it was the time to go with the motions. He called his agent. Babcock already knew, as well as the front office, PR and a slew of medical personnel. Step one was telling his family, and Phil had to make the calls the same night to be sure they’d know before the story blew up.

Amanda couldn’t stop laughing during the whole phone call. His dad was speechless. 

“And then I made my mother cry”, Phil confessed to Bozie after his call round, feeling jealous of the beer that the other man was drinking on the couch. “My mother! Have you ever made your mother cry?”

Bozie made a non-committal noise.

“I think I scared Blake shitless.”

“Ha! But it isn’t a thing that runs in a family, I don’t think.” Bozie paused for a moment. “You scared me shitless, too, but I thought that with you filling the NHL quota, the odds for me ending up the same way should be really fucking small.”

No-one knew what triggered the pregnancy, so outside having kids in a traditional way or living like a slob, there was no pill or a regimen that could prevent it. Having a ton of sex or no sex life at all made no difference on who spontaneously got pregnant. That didn’t stop Phil from asking himself what he could have done to make things turn differently. Of course there were urban legends of how to dodge it, but as single parenthood was generally a hailed and respected phenomenon, nobody really dared to claim that they exercised any of them. The connection between male pregnancy scare and the new lifestyle choices of smoking, aiming for extremely low body weight and drinking mindbogglingly strong spirits was not to be talked about in a polite conversation. 

Phil’s step two was to do what the team management told him to do. The next day he was assigned a PR woman. Just for him. Apparently pushing this whole thing to the franchise’s gain was a full time job. The woman, Laura, was a mix of steel eyed business person and a golden child communication consultant.

First, Phil got a private lecture (an actual power point presentation with picture examples) on how a semi-famous (now predicted to become very famous) pregnant dude should appear in public. 

He was told that he should dress as smart as possible. No sweatpants look in public if he could help it. (“Actually, we have some nice brands set up, they would love to send you paternity clothes to try out. And also we should definitely broaden our merchandise to pregnancy clothes.”) Also he should remember his hair appointments, and avoid stubble. No beard, either, because apparently PR surveys said that people still saw an image of a pregnant man with a beard as too jarring. 

Phil kept quiet and listened. He knew that his previous fuck you –strategy with the media wouldn’t do, but this was just ridiculous.

He would get asked a ton of questions. He was not to worry, they would give him ready soundbites to learn so he would always have something appropriate to say to the media. A list of topics to be avoided would also be provided. Also, if he wouldn’t or couldn’t answer, he was to smile. _Right._

He would get photographed, and he wouldn’t always know when it was happening, so he should try to keep his patience in all situations, and avoid angry gestures. Getting in someone’s face was definitely a no-no. And could he please look happier? He was pregnant, so he should act accordingly.

 _Act,_ Phil thought, and nodded to the woman.

“And we need new official photos! Hm, we should take a few quick ones right away, and more pro ones later.” 

Phil looked down at himself and his Henley.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, that’s a perfect get up for what we need. We can take pics with hockey gear later, to offer as an alternative.” Phil had a feeling that the PR would do everything to not to get any pics of a pregnant man associated with _actually playing hockey_ in circulation.

And then it was a time for the big guns. “So, at the moment you are scratched as a lower body injury, which by itself is news because you’ve practically never been sick before. I’ve sent invitations for a press event for tomorrow morning. It’s better to have press conference rather sooner than later because we can’t put you in IR without telling why.”

“Can’t we just lie?”

Laura’s face obviously spelled _no we can’t, you don’t know anything_ , but she was more professional than that. “We could, but at this point there’d be no way to avoid speculation. You know the video of you leaving the ice is everywhere. People want to know what happened.”

A press conference, shit. “But what would I tell? Couldn’t you just make a statement without me there?”

“Absolutely not. This is a human interest story. People want to see emotions.”

Double shit. A press conference solely focused on him, just what he needed.

“Don’t worry, we’ll write your statement and prep you for the press questions. And we try to play it down and get only beat reporters and locals. It might not work, though, in this market you’re news even though they’d think it’s about a regular injury.”

***

Phil’s next meeting was with the team doctor, and it was even more bizarre than his PR meeting. 

“Here’s your appointed pregnancy specialist’s information, you’ll have the first appointment tomorrow, after the scheduled press event. Tomorrow is also the first nutritionist appointment, but that’s here since our own guy, Harry, will also be present and will take over from there. And then, later in the afternoon you have… Um." 

Dr. Forman halted, trying to quickly come up with something that would remedy the sour look that had risen to Phil’s face. “Uh, our Harry Martin, you know him, right?”

“Yes, I know him.” Harry was a good guy, who accepted the fact that no matter how you inform a person about healthy eating, one can’t order a grown man to follow your instructions if he doesn’t want to. “It’s not about that. I thought that I would make my own plans.” Phil waved his arm over himself to indicate _concerning this all_.

“Oh. Well, since the team is footing the bill from all this, we thought it would be good to just get the ball rolling.”

Phil didn’t say anything because _fuck you_ wouldn’t have furthered this conversation any.

“Okay, you might not care who pays it, but now you don’t have stress about meeting the government requirements and with our appointments, you can skip the expectant single parents’ health program.”

“Oh.” Phil hadn’t really thought about that. He vaguely knew that the government was very into single parent health issues, and that he’d read some negative articles about single parents not having a say in their health decisions, but what that actually entailed, he had no idea. 

“We just refer your information to them, this is truly the easiest route that we can arrange for you.”

“What?” They’d give his health information forward, even if the health care was in private sector? It dawned to Phil that maybe this wasn’t something that you could simply arrange, that his team had possibly used plenty of their money, resources, connections and power to keep Phil’s next nine months to themselves. 

“Sorry, sorry, that came out wrong”, Phil said to the doc, who was now clearly distressed. "Just, carry on, then. What’s next?”

***

In the next day’s press conference, the media did get to witness emotions. It was lucky for Phil that at this time, his _thoroughly pissed_ impression could be, and was, interpreted as _overwhelmed._

“I’m grateful to the world of what I dare to say, is a little miracle for me.” Phil had vetoed all Christian references because his relationship with god was no-ones business but him, but the PR troops had somehow managed to slip a miracle in there.

Then his statement continued to the part where he told he was pregnant, and Phil got some satisfaction seeing the press almost lose their minds over the news.

“I’m also grateful for the wonderful support that I have already received from my family, friends, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the whole NHL organization. I wanted to share this moment with the media, too.” It was hard to look convincing when the only thing he got to fall back to was his defensive stance where he automatically raised his chin to make it feel like he’d be looking down at his opponents. 

“I have been advised to avoid stress when my pregnancy progresses, so for medical reasons I wish that you guys respect my privacy and won’t hound me much.” 

The journalists chuckled obediently, already eagerly waiting for the open questions.

The NHL middle manager representing the franchise, Brendan Shanahan and Babcock all took their turn to voice their official support. Then there were some appropriately vague prediction of the length of his break, and an opportunity for a “few questions.” 

The Leafs representative chose a few reporters who they knew would throw softballs at Phil. Yes, he was exited. Yes, it was inconvenient to go public this early with all risk factors there were, but he got a public job and now he couldn’t do it, so. Yes, it was a boy (laughter.) No, he didn’t have a name yet.

While answering, Phil had to work for not searching support from Bozie, who Phil knew was right behind the logo wall. While the statement assured that Phil had the whole support of his team mates, in an effort of downplaying the event the PR people had opted for his mates to not be there. And that meant no Bozie, either.

And then it was over. Phil got to continue straight to his super exclusive, probably super expensive doctor’s appointment. Phil tried to think that it wasn’t the kid’s fault that the world was crazy. (Or at least tried to wrap his head around the fact that there was a kid.) 

At least the kid wouldn’t be an exact Xerox copy of himself. Even if the genes were the same, conditions in the womb weren’t, so while single parent children tended to have an uncanny resemblance to their parent at the same age, their height, weight, interests, personality and even sexual orientation tended to differ from their parents. 

There were some groups that tried to challenge single kids even being individuals. According to them, single children were like a fountain of youth, the kid being just a younger copy of the original. They lobbied for a law that would force the single kids to carry the same name as their father. (And now Phil would never name his son Philip, not with the new connotation that the christening tradition carried.) Fortunately the idea of single father practically living forever was too unsettling for the mainstream believers.

Bozie accompanied Phil through his “pregnancy crap day”, even when he was condemned to wait around in waiting rooms and corridors, even during the nutritionist meeting. Phil didn’t know how he would have survived without his silent support.

***

In the evening they ended up in Phil’s place again, both exhausted. But instead of taking a nap, Phil just had to check the day’s media about him.

Officially, everyone and their dog fell themselves to congratulate Phil and show how much they approved and supported him. To Phil, it looked oddly similar to LGBT support, but ten times more intense. 

After witnessing the media attention first hand, Phil was still surprised by the volume and sheer vigor the media ran the story. There were neutral stories (with Phil’s new official photos, without the hockey gear), there were human interest stories in publications that normally couldn’t care less about sports, and there were the sports media stories with huge analysis of what this could mean for the Maple Leafs and for the whole franchise. 

Finally, there were a zillion blogs and online medias collecting hits by claiming he was too unfit, lazy, dumb and fat to have a miracle kid and that it was a hoax or somehow intentional to avoid a trade. There was also a meme where his head was photoshopped in various ways in various pictures. Phil didn’t quite get it.

Some of the analysts entertained the thought of calculating a monetary figure for the Leafs’ bad luck of not trading him in time before his surprise mandatory leave. It was an interesting topic but required some careful talking around since talking about the negatives of the single child phenomenon was a touchy subject.

The asshole portion of the hockey enthusiasts just suggested that the Leafs should have traded Phil the second they learned about his condition, while it was still possible to pretend that they hadn’t known about it. Personally Phil thought that it would have been a clever move, and that it had probably not been acted on only because the trading team would have sued the Leafs to hell because of that, and because in the front office there had been people that truly believed in the “God’s plan” train of thought.

“Imagine how much hits you will bring to the news sites? Even the good ones are all over this. Deadspin is practically wetting itself and I’ll bet Hockey News is planning their next cover right now.”

“I live to serve, then. Hopefully my mom doesn’t have a google alert on me.”

“Don Cherry says its bad karma for you acting like a girl.”

“The women hating bastard. At least he says it as it is, everyone else is pretending it’s a blessing.”

“I wouldn’t say a blessing, but isn’t it still pretty great when you think of it?”

“How so?” 

“You’ll be getting a kid out of this! Like, for free!”

Huh. Phil hadn’t thought about it that way. “Come here.” They were already sitting on the same couch but Phil patted the place just on his side, wanting Bozie closer.

“What?”

“It was a hard day. I’m fucking touch deprived. Cuddle with me.”

Bozie kept his position in the other end of the couch, blinking at him.

“Fuck you, it’s a pregnancy thing. Just help me out buddy.”

“Okay okay.” Bozie came to sit beside him, side to side and thigh to thigh. He even set his arm behind Phil’s back, date night style. “Better?”

Phil didn’t care about the sarcasm in Bozie’s voice, but sighed and leaned deeper. “Yes.”

Still, Phil couldn’t stop his mind working. “What if I don’t feel parental when the kid is born? I don’t feel parental now.”

“Then I’ll make sure that you won’t accidentally forget the baby for a pack of wild dogs to adopt.”

“You know I’m going to be a dead weight for the team, without a sure returning plan? Or even an exit plan, for that matter.”

Bozie pressed even closer if possible. “It’s not your responsibility to try to solve their problems. Think it like this: Anyone can end up in IR at any time. Do you think Crosby would have rather taken a concussion over a baby leave? No.”

Phil knew it was going to be a problem for the team. He would be out at least this season and maybe the next one too, and even if some would welcome the idea of getting rid of him and his impact on the salary cap, there was a problem with replacing him. 

Sure, they could sign another high performing player tomorrow and be even left with an extra cap space, but Phil would be coming back. They’d have to either find someone good who would care to come for a minuscule one year contract, make cap space for both him and his replacement to play at the same time when he’d come back, make do without a replacement, or solidify their relationship with the replacement player and trade Phil right when he’d be coming back. 

Even Phil could see that the last option was the best for the team’s performance. Still he doubted if that would be the best for the whole Maple Leafs franchise, since no-one could predict the impact to their image from that move. Any gesture suggesting that the player was being punished for being a single parent could go relatively unnoticed, or it could blow up and make them look the most evil team ever. 

Phil loved Toronto, but there would be no reason to stay in Canada for his pregnancy and parental leave if he’d be traded anyway. He’d rather be traded right away and maybe spend his time in Florida, but that would look very bad for all around. Also, who the hell would want someone who would be in definite IR for at least a year? 

There was even one option that Phil hadn’t thought before. That he learned when his agent called to ask if he’d be open to consider a possibility that he would just ask a termination of his contract, and it would be allowed, no strings attached. He’d be paid a hefty severance pay, and it would be cited as Phil’s request and his own personal choice. Then, after the kid was born, if he wanted to get back to hockey, he’d be free to negotiate a contract as a free agent to anywhere he wanted.

Phil’s answer to the unofficial offer was a very unofficial _fuck you._ First, pregnancy hadn’t made him suddenly stupid, he knew his rights, and second, what did they mean with _if he wanted_ to come back? Did he look like one of those guys who suddenly found their parenthood so fulfilling that their left their careers to become house husbands? Just, no.

***

And so it went. The life continued, even when Phil felt like he’d jumped off and was now watching the tail lights. 

Even when it had been made clear to him that participation was not mandatory, Phil made an effort to see as many games as he could in the press box. He also tried to accompany Bozie to practices, if only to use the Leafs’ excellent gym and spa facilities. The guys gave him looks at first, but either Babcock or Phaneuf must have said something because things returned normal soon after. 

Well, almost normal. Firstly, Phil wasn’t playing, which to him was as abnormal as it could get. Secondly, some of the guys were mysteriously absent whenever he used the bath or the gym. It must have been the preggers cooties, then.

It took a few months to Phil finally noticed a few things. The biggest one being him _actually being pregnant._ It was pretty hard to take seriously something that you couldn’t see or feel, but when you started your morning with puking and your gums were so swollen that you felt like your teeth were falling off, it was definitely something. 

Single parent pregnancies were often described as joyous time of introspection and a pause in whatever hectic life the expectant father had. There shouldn’t be problems, because pregnant males were fit and able. And even if there were, well. Let’s not talk about it.

For Phil, being pregnant still felt weird as hell. Sometimes the fluctuating hormones made him puke and almost pass out, and sometimes he felt fine and even forgot his condition altogether. He planned things like vacation trips in his head only to later realize that he’d forgotten to factor the kid in. He ended up in a discussion about families, and gathered stares with his unthoughtful “Yeah, no kids for me” comment.

Things felt weird overall and Phil wanted to know why. Despite some online insinuations that he’d behave like a slob while concocting the kid, Phil wanted to do a good job. He would be a freaking great dad, and one part of it was to gather information about being pregnant from some alternative sources, too, if he could find them.

Phil was late night googling again, because you couldn’t read stupid pregnancy articles and discussion boards in a daylight, apparently. A few weeks earlier he had found a board with rather free minded people, and these guys seemed to know what they were talking about. He registered as a user and was welcomed to the community. While the discussion stayed in generic topics without much information that Phil hadn’t already seen elsewhere, he felt that he was somehow tested. 

He opened a tab for his new mail account that he had set up just for his new internet habit, and there it was. He hadn’t known what he had been waiting, but it ended up being an invitation to another discussion board, invitation only, secret and as anonymous as it got. Phil quickly entered the new board. This was what he needed: Other people in the same situation, uncensored.

That night, he didn’t sleep. He read the devastating stories on how the pregnancy could wreck your body, and how no-one gave a shit about your mental state or your financial problems after your one year leave. 

Phil read on how the North American child protection system really operated. Government kept a strict eye on every pregnancy and any sign of being anything but positively expectant made the child protective services watching you like a hawk. Some had tried to terminate their pregnancies, contacted wrong people and ended up in jail for the rest of their pregnancies. It was called a facility of a heightened health and protective services, but it was a jail. 

Only physically fit men got pregnant, but that was for the physical side, only. There was no-one to help if your wife wanted to leave you because of it. Not daring to show anger, or let people see how tired you were, could screw you up. Your hormones went haywire, and if you had a history of depression or other mental problems, you were basically fucked.

Phil only stopped reading when Bozie shuffled past him in his way to kitchen. Phil slammed the computer shut. This, he wouldn’t share even with Bozie. The other guys had trusted him and he couldn’t break that trust. It had been made clear to him that the board was highly illegal because it posted forbidden propaganda and could be used to contact people who arranged abortions. Government had special interest in these kind of hubs and was actively trying to shut them down.

Phil went after Bozie to get his half-a-cup of coffee, mind still on the board. How much could he count on his wealth and celebrity status to protect him? If he got photographed buying beer in a supermarket, would that draw a visit from the child protective services? Or worse yet, if the board was busted and his IP address traced, would that warrant a night at a police station, or a monitoring period in the heightened health facility to ensure that he wouldn’t be a danger to his child?

Still, Phil kept going back. He had to.

***

Three months into his pregnancy, Phil was still feeling like shit. The morning sickness that came from the spiking hormone levels should have been gone now, but the bouts of sickness lingered on. 

“It looks your weight hasn’t followed the curve.” His male pregnancy specialist looked serious after entering Phil’s newest weighting result.

“Yeah?” Phil went on like it would be the first time he’d ever heard that. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Not necessarily, with your current weight. At least not yet.”

Phil had lost the weight due to not eating, and puking up what he managed to get down. “Well, it’s not like I hadn’t weight to shed. I’m in a healthier diet, and I still exercise quite a lot. So it could be just that, shedding the excess.”

“Could be. I make a note to follow it closer, if it continues to stall we’ll have to do something about it, at least tweak your diet.”

“Yes, of course.” 

“So is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Problems or fears?” The doctor looked at him with sympathy. He really had Phil’s best interest in his mind.

“No”, Phil heard himself saying. “I feel great.” 

***

The Leafs were doing better. They still lost more games than they won, but they were getting there, even if not in this year. Phil watched the games and felt jealous.

It was lonely. Phil had no practices or games, and as he started to show, the team workouts were suddenly declared “too rowdy” for him. Phil still tried to prefer the team facilities instead of his condo’s gym, but ended doing most of his exercises either by himself or under the watchful eye of the team physiotherapist.

He had friends outside of the team, but the intense media attention was getting on their nerves, too. It was the little things that piled up: Being photographed and walked on by strangers on a street, not daring to drink alcohol in Phil’s presence no matter how many times he said that he didn’t care, not knowing how to behave when Phil got twinges of pain, bouts of nausea or an attack of sleepiness. Add the general weirdness of being in a presence of a pregnant dude, a wordless reminder that it could happen to them, too, and it often got… tedious. Phil didn’t blame them when some of his friends distanced themselves from his situation.

Phil finally lost it when he was uninvited from participating in away game trips. They had consulted with Phil’s doctor, he was told, and of course he had recommended cutting all traveling that wasn’t strictly mandatory. 

“You know it’s not good for you. Especially flying, the cabin pressure changes cause distress to the fetus, you’ll probably end up dehydrated and the risk factors for pulmonary embolism are too high”, Dr. Forman repeated to Phil.

“I’m supposed to be a _healthy_ scratch, and I’m treated like I have a concussion! I’m part of the team, you wouldn’t cast me aside if I’d had shoulder surgery, or a blood clot!”

“But you don’t have them, you are pregnant and eliminating all unnecessary risk factors is what we’ll continue to do. It’s for your best.” The doctor fixed his glasses and turned back to Phil. “Also, if you suffer any kind of complications that require you to visit a hospital in the States, I can’t guarantee that they’ll let you go. You are their citizen, Phil.”

That Phil hadn’t thought. Even thinking about it, not being able to come home, made him anxious. “That’s… true. Maybe it’s better if I won’t leave the country, then. For... health reasons.”

Phil’s Pregnancy Support Team ( _Really?_ ) also enrolled him to a single parent pregnancy support group. It was organized by Canada’s health care authorities, as this was the one way of support that the team couldn’t buy from the private sector health care. 

To Phil, it came quickly clear that this was a support group for _happily_ pregnant men, and it wouldn’t be vise to act anything but. So it was all about where to buy clothes that fit, the benefits of organic food, what did their church thought, and if they wanted a kid who was just like them or as little like them as possible. No-one seemed to have medical worries worse than swollen feet, and no doubts about the months after the birth going anything but smoothly. 

There was Chris, who had his own startup company, Michael, who worked at Microsoft, Etienne, a professional saxophone player, Tim the house husband, and others that made their group so diverse that one hockey player didn’t even raise eyebrows. Some of the men seemed to be genuinely happy and sincerely meaning every word they said. Some of them weren’t so genuine, but Phil had no way of knowing if some of them visited the same board as he did. And for all of their sakes, it was better not to try identify any of them.

Still, even with the layer of fake, it was better than nothing. With maybe every hundredth man able to conceive, even in the city as large as Toronto, they weren’t that many that were currently pregnant. Phil had his anonymous online group, but it really was eye opening for Phil to physically see other men in the same situation. If anything, at least it made him feel less like a freak.

In the group meetings, it wasn’t anything that was said that Phil was fascinated the most. It was the persons Phil saw at glimpse, the people that sometimes drove the others to the meetings or picked them up. There were wives, husbands, friends and mothers. Family members of all kinds.

Some arrived and left alone. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t have anybody, Phil told to himself. He did never show up with anyone either.

What would his family look like in a year? There would be the kid, if he didn’t somehow manage to fuck that up. The idea of being a father still made him unsettled, but even if he might not have parental instincts, he could god damn learn. 

Phil ordered a load of parenting books. No, he wasn’t particularly interested in reading about how to raise a child, but he’d need to know how much they slept and what they ate and what was normal. He only ordered generally approved books and tried to stay away from any alternative ideologies. There were also dozens, if not hundreds of books about single parents and kids, but only a few about actual single _parenting._ Phil ordered those, too. And cookbooks, because it was time for him to learn that, too.

But the books didn’t help with Phil’s confusion about his family. Despite their original plans, Phil’s parents weren’t around. He understood that it was probably more of his doing than theirs. Phil just wasn’t willing to regress back to a son to be taken care of, when he was supposed to be taking care of his own son, soon. Bozie had insisted that it wasn’t like that, that family members could support each other as equals, but it was Phil’s feeling about the situation and he couldn’t change it. 

And then there was Bozie. Tyler. His best bro, who’d said that he’d stick around and help. Being there in a time of need was great, but that promise still wouldn’t create anything lasting, not anything that Phil dared to call a relationship or even a family. 

He and Bozie had kinda had something going on when Bozie had lived as his roommate the first time. They hadn’t had sex, but had shared physical closeness so intimate it was usually shared only by lovers. They fell asleep on top of each other on the couch, had no modesty with each other and had done that thing where you sat close to another person and you were both aroused and you both knew that you knew, and still neither made a move. 

Things were a bit more formal now, but Phil couldn’t say if it was just him needing his space. Were they heading towards the direction that they had started then but never got there? Or maybe they should stay only as friends. But Phil had never seen a family where a kid had two supporting adults and the other would be only a genuine friend, no other relationship.

They should really talk about this. Only not today, Phil decided.

***

Phil was on his computer again, ignoring Bozie’s silent disapproval and the back ache that came from his hunched position. While Phil still felt detached from his situation, he entertained himself by going online to see what was written about him. It was weirdly narcissistic and masochistic at the same time. It wasn’t healthy to obsess over the shit that was thrown at him, but after the press conference, he just hadn’t been able to quit. 

Naturally drifting towards sports news and hockey blogs, he didn’t even have to google himself to find writings about him. Some were supporting and some were enthusiastic about the first NHL baby. Tumblr seemed to be full of crazies, but at least they were happy crazies on his side, or beyond sides. 

Blogs, on the other hand, were full of semi-intellectual speculations, which between the lines, revealed misogyny turned to single parent phobia. 

The news sites’ comment sections were the worst. The amount of hate was staggering, even to Phil who thought that he’d already seen it all. It was all about how he was letting his team down, that he was going to be a lousy father, that it was all his fault, that he would just lazy around for a year, and that he’d get disgustingly obese and would never ever get back in shape again.

“Did you know that there is an article on how much my parenting leave is going to cost to the Leafs?”

Bozie looked up from the sofa, where he’d been watching the previous day’s game. Phil hadn’t watched, as it was getting repetitive seeing his replacement Carl Söderberg on the ice and thinking _that should have been me._

“That’s actually a pretty interesting subject. I understood that you’re in IR and will take the parental leave money after the kid is born? That’s actually a good deal with them, no salary cap pressure and when that’s dealt with, they do have the freaking money.”

“That’s pretty much it.” There hadn’t been even any fighting over it, it wasn’t like his contract money would run during his absence. Phil remembered their earlier discussion about the franchise wanting this whole gig to end well on the PR level. 

“How about this one?” Phil read aloud. “For the child’s health and safety, Kessel should give his dog to adoption. No matter how domesticated, dogs are still animals descending from wolves and can behave unexpectedly and even violently. This solution would be the best for the dog, too, since it would have to give up the position of the child in the family anyway.”

Bozie just made some noise to acknowledge that he had heard what Phil had read, but deciding it wasn’t worth actually commenting about. 

“All this _concern_ is getting ridiculous.” Phil paused. There was another twinge on his back and he felt a headache coming. “They’re not going to let me play after this, aren’t they?” That was the question that had been looming over Phil without him realizing it. 

Now Bozie turned, looking serious. “I don’t know, why not? There’s really no reason to stop you. I’ve never heard anyone going single parent twice.” 

“I don’t think they will.” Phil felt the now familiar lack of control looming over him again. “I’ll fight them, or I’ll go somewhere else to play. KHL has single parents playing, I think. Maybe I’ll join the Moscow Dynamos. Or Jokerit, I heard that Finland is the best country for single parents.”

“Um.” Phil couldn’t decipher the look on Bozie’s face. _Fear?_ “You might not want to say that where others can hear you. It would be, like, defecting. You know that countries attracting foreign single parents is a big no-no subject.” 

“Which is fucking stupid.” These things should be talked aloud and not only in anonymous online groups.

“I know it is, but remember that you are an US citizen out of your country right now. You really want to stir that shit?”

And there was that again. “I guess not.” Phil physically pushed the computer away from himself. “And now I have a fucking headache.”

Bozie’s expression turned to the now more familiar pregnancy worry. “I wonder what happened to the never, ever reading about yourself. And just take something? You got prescribed some safe stuff, right?”

Phil just groaned in answer. “I’m not supposed to take anything. Did you know that according to the newest studies, continuous use of paracetamol during pregnancy can lower a developing child’s testosterone levels so much that his balls won’t drop?”

“Uh, no I didn’t. Aspirin?”

“That thins your blood and causes stomach ulcers.”

“So, nothing?”

“Yes, it’s supposed to be the best for the baby. But it’s okay, I can handle it.”

“At least go to take a nap. And you could stop reading about yourself. It worked before, why did you even start?”

“I don’t know. Masochism.” Phil shuffled to his bedroom, Stella following on his heel.

***

During an away game trip where Phil wasn’t, Laura the PR person called him to the office for a meeting again. Phil decided to bite the bullet and take it.

“I take that you probably aren't very interested in publicity but-”

Or not. “No.”

Laura carried on like a good little soldier. “It would do really good for your image if you'd agree on some television or video production-”

“No.”

“-like NHL behind the scenes footage?” 

Phil didn't bother to answer. 

Now she got flustered. "This is a really special thing what is happening with you and people would just like to share it with you.” Had she read the same press that he had? 

“And, you know, it's in your contract that you'll be available for the press a certain amount." She dared to check out Phil's soured expression. "Of which you haven't fulfilled yet." 

_Oh hell._ Phil knew how important it was for the whole organization for the story to go as they wished. "Okay. One interview and one... HBO special? Can you manage that?”

"Yes, that would be great," she enthused. We could negotiate on a whole series, though, reality is still-“

"No." 

She decided to go with the win she got. “Yeah, it would be too late for a series anyway, with months gone. Well, the baby’s birth would be another natural starting point… Okay, I’ll get back to you about the special.”

Phil really didn’t want any publicity, in his terms or without. He left, unhappy and hungry, craving for tacos or some other comfort food. He deserved it, damnit.

Phil had almost stopped eating anything in public after he’d been photographed leaving Whole Foods holding a simple ice cream. Apparently that wasn’t healthy and he shouldn’t have been eating dairy anyway. Suddenly everyone had an opinion on his personal eating habits and a need to voice it. Fuck them all, he could eat a scoop of ice cream if he wanted. His doctor had said that he shouldn’t try to cut everything good out of his diet, and why the hell he should even have explain this to anyone? 

Phil did buy his tacos, but he waited untill he got home to eat his treats. He shouldn’t care. Before this, he hadn’t. But now he did, because if anything would go wrong, the public would crucify him. Phil knew that the franchise would support him to a point, but at the end, they would rather throw him under the buss than expose themselves to public blame. Better to blame an individual than carry a stigma of an organization that wouldn’t give a shit about the precious single parent babies. He just knew this.

If the HBO wanted to make another 24/7 thing, maybe he should vet his home from floor to the ceiling to make sure there wouldn’t be anything that people would get upset about, Phil thought. Except for Stella, the pearl clutchers would just have to bear with it.

***

It took two days for Phil to start to regret his future media commitments. It was his newest online discovery that did it. Someone had taken a photo of his backside when he’d walked to the Leafs’ offices, and now there were posts dedicated to his derriere. Actual news pieces about his body part, on the net. 

It was a physiological fact that men came out of their pregnancies with their hips about an inch permanently wider than before their pregnancies. The change was nothing that people could really see, but it still fascinated people.

Phil viewed the pictures with a critical eye. Apart from the hip thing, there shouldn’t have been anything to look at. Except that there obviously was. He’d been a bit heavy before and he’d already gained back and went over the weight he’d lost at the beginning of his pregnancy. And of course he had the hockey ass. 

But seriously. That was some serious junk in the trunk. He hadn’t fitted in his jeans for a while now, but it was no wonder that his khakis and even his sweat pants felt so constricting nowadays. No-one just hadn’t had the guts to mention it to his face that there obviously was an extra place for his pregnancy weight, and that was his ass. 

“Hey, Bozie, how you like my new ass?”

Bozie turned to him, but then froze, looking strangely guilty.

“Shit, you like it? And noticed it?”

“I thought that you might not want me to remind you about it. And that goes for the rest of the guys, too.”

“… It’s that noticeable? And you all kept quiet about it because you were being considerate?” Phil didn’t know what to think. Should he be grateful for not having to hear chirping about it, or angry for being treated like some special case?

But Bozie was right, when he thought about it, he’d rather not hear about it. Phil also thought that Bozie had never acknowledged his question about liking his ass, but that he could let go for now.

***

Maybe it was because of the ass photos, maybe not, but a couple of days later Phil opened his door to find two delivery men with trolleys full of huge brown cardboard boxes. 

Phil recognized the NHL flagship store’s logo in the shipping receipt so he just signed the stuff without questions. It wasn’t the first time he’d been sent merchandise, for use or for him to sign. 

But not like this. This was quite a lot. “Hey Bozie! Come here a sec?”

“Huh?” 

Help me to sort this out? I got merch.”

Bozie was way more into opening the boxes than Phil was. It wasn’t a game day, so he could enjoy it without being on a schedule. “Oh my fucking god!” Bozie laughed.

“What?”

Bozie was holding something that looked like a regular long-sleeved shirt at first. “It’s a shirsey. A pregnancy shirsey, and it has _Kessel_ on it in the back.”

“Oh Jesus.” 

“And I don’t think this is even custom made, it has to be a new product. Dude, they made a pregnancy line in your name! I wonder if they’ll sell.”

For Phil’s silence, Bozie tried to lighten the mood. “Hey, we all sold away our names and likenesses when we signed, the stuff with your name in it just ended up a bit different.”

But it wasn’t anything that Bozie had said that had kept Phil quiet. He didn’t have the time to answer as he had opened another box, only to find it full of baby clothes.

Bozie dropped the shirsey and came to dig in. “There’s been baby merch before, I’ve seen them.”

Phil kept quiet. If Bozie hadn’t noticed that these were the actual first baby items that Phil had now, he wouldn’t bring it up. It was just, he’d been pregnant for months and outside some gifts that he’d stuffed in one of the closets there was nothing in his condo to show for it. 

After a second Phil got his voice back. “Yes, like onesies and mock jerseys. I think this is like a full wardrobe.” 

“At least most of these are without your name in them. And those who have a name, I think it’s those ones where you choose which name you want.”

“At least this one is.” Phil raised another teeny tiny jersey for Bozie to see. ”It has your name on it.”

“Someone is trying to be cute.” Bozie took the shirt from Phil. “So, I’m going to take this, since it’s my name. Yeah.” He rose to go to his room without looking at Phil.

“Whatever man. Hey I think there’s dog wear, too.” 

Bozie left Phil in the kitchen to open the rest of the boxes by himself. There were more clothes and a few rather nice baby blankets and teddy bears. 

Phil would have liked Bozie to be there, too see Phil trying to fit the dog wear to Stella and joke about being able to clothe his kid in NHL swag for the kid’s entire childhood. But Bozie didn’t return until much later, when Phil had already packed the merch away.

***

With the nausea finally gone, Phil found himself constantly hungry. He was a professional athlete who had had to eat huge amounts only to burn those on ice right after, and without feeling queasy all the time, his learned eating habit had come back.

Also, Phil suspected, his pregnancy hormones were screwing him over. He ate plenty of nutritious, healthy food, but he also craved pizza, fries and cookies. It was so easy to give up to the cravings when Bozie was in rehearsals and he was at home alone. 

Phil didn’t dare to call a pizza in case someone ratted him out, but grocery delivery services were less conspicuous and they also had good stuff. Frozen pizzas were good too, and little googling made Phil master the microwave cake-in-a-cup quickly. In the case of some asshole selling his grocery receipt, Phil was sure Bozie would throw himself under the bus for Phil, saying that the unhealthy stuff was for him, making himself looking a shitty roommate in the process. 

Phil didn’t tell Bozie about his plan. He hadn’t told, exactly, about his online grocery shopping sprees, either. If Bozie didn’t keep count on what was in the freezer, it wasn’t Phil’s duty to tell. And if Phil made an extra effort putting all the trash away from the frozen treats and washing the dishes after his experimental baking, that was normal, right?

Some of his _food thing_ , as Phil called it in his mind, had to proceed from Phil having nothing to do. What many seemed to forget was that professional hockey players really loved playing hockey. Yes, off-season was always a nice break, but Phil had never met a career hockey player who would rather do something else. Meaning that he really fucking missed hockey. After his shoulder surgery he hadn’t missed a single game, and now they didn’t even let him skate, let alone play in practice. 

In their last meeting, his pregnancy specialist and his team doctor had decided to limit his training even more. Apparently it wasn’t allowed to try to keep the NHL level fitness level through the pregnancy. Phil couldn’t understand why. 

Okay, so he’d fell down once. Once! And it was not his fault that his center of gravity was now for shit.

Cutting down his training would end his only method to compensate for his food thing, but Phil couldn’t exactly complain aloud to Bozie about that. 

”I'm going crazy here. I can't play hockey, I can't golf, they won't let me train alone, and I'm tired of video games.”

“You could, uh prepare? For the baby to come, arrange a nursery and stuff?”

“Nah. And I already took care of it.”

“You did? When? And I would have noticed if you’d, like, decorated a nursery and bought diapers.”

“Yes. Okay, I paid somebody to do it for me.” The merchandise dump had awakened Phil to notice that he really hadn’t done much to prepare for the baby, so he’d done something about it. “They’ll come next week to do their stuff.” 

“You can actually buy that as a service?”

Phil had wondered the same thing. But in a world where you could pay for people to arrange your closets and men could have babies, it hadn't been that hard to find a company. Some of the guys in his live support group had used the same service. They would decorate your nursery, baby proof your house and supply your home with all the essentials, from top safety rated car seats and diaper dumpsters to matched baby wear arranged by size. 

Personally, Phil couldn’t care less about what brand the baby monitor was, so he'd just paid for somebody else to make that decision. A few weeks ago, he hadn't even seen one or known that he'd need one. He’d just chosen the second expensive package, which meant that everything would be as high quality as money could buy. (The most expensive package had been named Beyoncé, so Phil had just skipped that one. He didn’t think his kid would need _Beyoncé_ to be fully cared of.)

“Oh, hey. You could take parenting lessons! Where they, I don't know, teach you how to change diapers? Or cooking lessons?”

“I don't know. It could be awkward, but possibly useful.” Also, the PR people would love him for it, for being domestic and shit.

“C'mon. I'll come with you!” Bozie paused for a second when he realized the possible implications of what he'd just said, but decided to carry on nevertheless. “I'll bet I'll end up changing diapers, too, so better learn from the experts?”

They still hadn’t really discussed what Bozie helping around would actually mean when the kid was born. Phil had no idea how much he could ask without driving his best friend away. Maybe Bozie didn’t know, either.

Phil refused to think about it right now, about people possibly growing too attached for their own good. “I'll check it out if there is something that won't clash too badly with your rehearsals and games.”

***

Laura called him again the morning the HBO special production was scheduled to visit him at his home. 

“I understand that Tyler Bozak is living with you again?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Hm, I was just wondering if you wanted to show that on television.”

Maybe Phil should have thought about this more. “There’s nothing going on, he’s my friend.”

Laura hmm’ed at this, keeping the conversation without saying anything.

What did she want? “Wrong answer? Did you expect something else? Want something else?”

“I was just thinking about the big picture. You know, as much as single parents are appreciated, the public really don’t want to see them being single. It’s depressing. It also makes you look wanton, which is crazy, I know. You could be a virgin for all I know.”

Oh. “So at this case, me being preggers, it would be better for the publicity if I’d be in a relationship, even in a gay one?”

“That’s basically it.”

“But I’m not is a gay relationship with Bozie.”

“I’m not telling you to lie, Phil. Just don't say that you aren’t dating, and people see what they want you to see.”

His doorbell was buzzing now, so Phil scrambled to let the crew in. “Okay gotcha.”

***

The shooting of the special had gone well, Phil guessed. The Baby Preparation Service had done their thing, so he’d had a nursery to show and a high chair to bump into. Bozie being there had definitely helped, and Phil had let the crew think whatever they wanted about their relationship.

Feeling tired but good, Phil had said to Bozie to not to wait up and went to the anon board to see what was going on. He couldn’t tell about the shoot without exposing his identity, but it never hadn’t been about him in the board.

Bozie found him, an hour later. “Phil?” Why are you still up?”

“I was on a board.” Phil didn’t specify which board. Bozie only knew about Phil’s “internet friends” through Phil’s vague mentions.

“One of the regulars, Jake21. We knew he had some problems, and a month ago he stopped posting. We are all anonymous so we couldn’t check what happened to him. Now he’s back.” 

Phil wiped his face. The screen looked blurry. “They took his kid, Bozie. Jack did some stupid things, and they took him to a facility for the rest of the pregnancy, and after the kid was born the child protection took him.”

Bozie put his hand on Phil’s shoulder. “But it’s all anonymous. It’s his side of the story, maybe there were some things that he left out. You just can’t know. And it couldn’t happen to you, you have an army on your side.” 

“But things can change.” Phil turned off the computer and rose to follow Bozie back to bed.

“Promise me that if I ever refuse to go to a doctor’s appointment or something like that, you’ll make me go, no matter what.”

Bozie waited for Phil to settle on the bed before joining him. “I promise.”

***

After what had happened to Jake21 in the anon board, participating his live support group got tedious. But there wasn’t dropping out, not without drawing attention, so he just went with it. 

The evening’s official theme was “Don’t raise your kid to fulfil the dreams that you didn’t reach” (but only a slightly more correct wording.) The unofficial theme was “Wow, do we feel weird and awkward and unmanly.”

At least there were cupcakes. And soft pretzels, for the manliness, they joked. The most interesting part of the meeting, however, was Jay, one of their previous members. He’d dropped out when his baby had been born, but now he was paying a visit. And he brought his baby with him.

The group guide urged everyone to hold the kid, and there wasn’t getting away from it, so soon Phil found himself holding a baby boy. 

_Wow._ It hit Phil that he had never before had held a living baby in his arms. Even in the parenting course that him and Bozie had managed to limp through they had learned to change diapers for a doll. The thought of holding a living baby freaked him out. In a few months this would be him, and he’d better be good at it, or else. The thought scared him.

***

Phil felt that it was a good thing that he’d decided to visit his doctor alone from the start, because things started to turn tricky. He’d felt like he’d punched in the stomach when the doctor had checked Phil’s newest blood work and started talking about preventing pregnancy diabetes. 

“So, I went to a doctor today?”

“Yeah?” Bozie was doing his fake casual tone right away, because he obviously knew that Phil wouldn’t report his visits without any actual news. 

“And they said that I have like, a pre-diabetes. A pre-pregnancy diabetes, not the regular one”, Phil hastened to say when he saw how alarmed Bozie looked.

“So what does that mean?”

“When I finally got over the nausea I’ve been doing some reward eating, and now this. So now I’m back eating super healthy, I guess. Also there's meds, like, pills. No way in hell I want to start taking insulin, which comes next if the diet doesn’t work.”

The word insulin made Bozie worried. “Wow. That’s-. That sucks.”

Phil nodded, feeling miserable. Bozie would understand how this sucked in so many levels.

“You’ve been doing some... reward eating? What does that mean, exactly?”

“Uh.” Time to come clean. “I’ve been eating a lot crap not in my diet. In secret. …from you.” This was ridiculous, and sad. Grown men didn’t have eating issues.

Bozie looked sad too, and extremely serious. “You gotta stop it, Phil. Diabetes could screw up your hockey career after this, and it could screw up the pregnancy.”

Phil knew it. He knew it so fucking well, and still he’d kept slipping. 

Phil was just so tired. He was tired of acting well-adjusted in public and lying to his doctor. He was tired of his world getting smaller, him only having Bozie to talk to and only his place to spend his time in. Nowadays he slept so poorly at nights that days had turned to a battle against constant fatigue. The act of getting up to go to the Leafs’ gym made him anxious, and his already complicated eating habits were turning into issues.

So tired of this. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“NO, Phil, of course you can do it, so shut up, I don’t want to hear it!” 

Phil felt like he’d forgotten how to breathe for a couple of seconds. He saw a look of shock overtake Bozie. 

“Oh no, sorry, I’m so sorry! Of course I want to hear about it. I want you to tell me if something is wrong. I didn’t mean it, I don’t know where that came from.”

They both knew where that came from. It came from Bozie wanting the baby, him wanting Phil to have the baby, and that was his gut reaction to any other option or outcome.

“But you can do this. You’ve done harder things. It’s only a few months now, and when the baby is born, we’ll make a new game plan.” Bozie looked into Phil to make sure he was still listening. “You could invite your mom to stay for a while? Or Amanda or Blake?” _while I’m away and can’t watch you_ went unsaid.

“I don’t know.”

Bozie looked anxious. “You can do this”, he repeated to Phil. “You still want this”, he continued, with smaller voice. “Want to have the kid? Be a dad?”

Phil had to think about it for a second. “I want it. And I… I can do it, I can, but you gotta help me out.”

It was a weird night, Phil and Bozie going through every cupboard and freezer corner and throwing out the low quality crap, baking ingredients and even the take-out menus. Phil was in a mood for six beers, but he couldn’t have any, or a shitload of chips, which he couldn’t have either. He was hungry and moody and he felt like crying. 

Tyler got anxious, too, wanting to support him but not knowing what to do. Eventually he sat Phil down and made him a cup of tea with a dollop of honey. Phil couldn’t drink it because it had caffeine and the pollen in the honey was an allergen. Bozie got upset because he’d forgotten and offered Phil wrong stuff, but it was the thought that counted.

The next morning Phil enrolled himself for a balanced meals delivery service. Himself only, because Bozie was away in the games a lot and Phil didn’t want to end up eating double portions.

The food mostly arrived when he wasn’t hungry and it was mostly cold and unappealing when he was. The portions also weren’t calculated for pregnant male athletes, so after two weeks Phil canceled the service and regressed to eating just raw vegetables, cold cuts and diet coke straight from his fridge. It would have to do. His diet got better, but his habit of not telling about it to Bozie didn’t. 

***

Phil was laying on his back, groggy from his afternoon nap relaxed, when he felt it. It wasn’t him that was moving. He waited a moment, and felt it again. Like a little bump, but inside of him. Phil imagined a little heel kicking out and connecting. 

“Someone is awake” he murmured. He was alone and there wasn’t anyone to call and tell that he’d felt the baby kicking the first time, but he smiled anyway. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t share the moment just then, he could tell Bozie in the evening. Right now this would be their moment, his and the baby’s. 

Phil’s rare happily pregnant mood did last till the evening, but when Bozie got home, Phil wasn’t in the mood anymore to share. Instead he settled on lying beside Bozie in a bed that they now shared for most of the nights.

“So, I got a word that they liked the special and they’ll try to bump it in their programming schedule so it would air before the kid will born.”

“That’s good.”

“Yep. Except, remember that while they filmed, I joked about putting my pregnancy clothes in a charity auction? Apparently they decided to use it and now the PR-Laura wants the Leafs to actually do it.”

Bozie was running out noncommittal things to say. “That’s... something.”

Phil waited a moment to drop his bomb. “Sports Illustrated requested a photo shoot and an interview, and my agent said yes.”

That got a reaction out of Bozie. “And you’re okay with that?”

“It’s not about if I’m okay with it, it’s required so I’m doing it. It’s part of the _being available for the media_ deal in my contract.”

“But it could be okay? They take really good photos.”

“But it’s Sports Illustrated! It’s not a freaking swim suit issue, but they are famous for picturing beautiful people! What the hell were they even thinking?”

“It’s about the pregnancy, Phil, not about what your mug looks like. You are the first in NHL, and there’s only a few in other pro sports, even if you count together baseball, golf, football and soccer. It’s interesting. And they’ll probably take great pictures of you too.”

“Yeah, great. The only thing that will ever put me in Sports Illustrated also makes me look like shit.” 

The truth was, Phil didn’t look good. The hormones had made his skin break out. The pregnancy also had made him retain water, and even when the scale told that his pregnancy weight wasn’t really an issue yet, he looked bloated. It was winter so no-one wondered his long pants that hid his swollen ankles, but his face was more rounded than usual and his double chin was back. He looked like crap, there was no going around it. 

The thing was, no matter how hard he tried, now it was impossible to not care. Before he hadn’t given a shit if a teammate chirping him about a few extra cookies ended up on air, but now the media game had been ramped up in a whole new level and he couldn’t just not care. Sorry that he didn’t look like a movie star, that never was in his job description. 

“I think you look handsome. You look like Viking, ready to swing a huge ass sword to protect your home and family. And who cares what you look like, you are a hot commodity. They totally know what they are doing with the charity auction idea. Did you know that they sold out your Maple Leafs’ pregnancy merchandise and now the stuff is on eBay for ridiculous prices?”

Phil smacked Bozie with a pillow because he didn’t dare to answer, so Bozie wouldn’t hear in his voice how pleased he was because of Bozie’s little news.

(The pictures eventually ended even in the cover, even when Phil’s agent hadn’t negotiated about that. )

***

Phil learned about the existence of male pregnancy fetish sites the worst possible way: he caught Bozie surfing in one of them. Thank fuck it wasn't one of the actual porn sites that Phil found later because of his morbid curiosity, but a blog posting celebrity news about known pregnant or previously pregnant men. So it was all about photographs and gifs of celebrities, some posted over and over again, plus "artistic" photos of pregnant male models and even amateur snapshots of pregnant men that were supposedly cute. The blog wasn’t really anything worse than a regular tumblr site dedicated to fawning over something, but still. 

Phil threw his fishing magazine on the side table and craned his neck, looking up to Bozie to see if he was in the mood of some (healthy) fast food. Phil was really good at seeing at one glance if Bozie would be in a mood of being persuaded. 

But this time, Bozie was deep in whatever he was reading on his computer. Curious, instead of hollering him from the sofa, Phil got up and tiptoed behind him to see what was so enchanting. Maybe it was something he could chirp Bozie over later. 

In the browser there was a some kind of entertainment blog open. Phil didn’t recognize the site, but that wasn’t surprising. Keeping quiet, Phil read the site behind Bozie’s shoulder. There were paparazzi type shots of some vaguely familiar person, heavily pregnant. _Huh._ A half of another post fit the window, the header asking the readers to weight in if so-and-so was preggers, pics underneath! 

"What are you reading?"

Bozie jerked and the look on his face was almost comical; eyes vide, head turning while he tried to look both at Phil and the screen, and hands fumbling like he wanted to slam the screen closed but didn’t dare.

"Nothing." Even saying that Bozie obviously knew that that wouldn’t fly, but that was his standard panic answer.

"Try again, this time with a feeling.”

"Er." Bozie usually wasn’t this much lost in words. Phil not so gently pushed Bozie from the computer and sat to scroll the site. Bozie stayed standing and hovering near, looking anxious. 

It was kind of an okay site, from the less seedy side of the net. Still, it was some the comments that made Phil’s blood boil.

_I love skinny bitches like that, breaking their backs to carry the baby weight. I'll bet doggy style is the only position he's doing now. I'll swear that it’s not a shadow on his shirt, that’s a milk spot, guh. Look at that! You can see the belly button popping out through the shirt!_ 


Now Phil wanted to slam the computer shut. "Bozie, what the fuck?"

"I’m sorry, man! I’m just... No excuses. I’m sorry. I’ll stop, I swear.”

“Does this shit turn you on?”

“I don’t know, I was curious, okay?”

“You were browsing this crap because you don’t know if it turns you on?”

“Yes! Because I wanted to find out if...”

“You wanted to find out if I would turn you on?”

Bozie just looked at him, perplexed.

That fucker. Phil’s voice got low. “Well? Did you find out?”

Bozie nodded, hesitantly.

“And you kept coming back to the site? This wasn’t your first visit?”

Bozie didn’t answer quickly enough for Phil. “Don’t make me check your browser history, buddy.”

“Yeah, I kept coming back.” Bozie looked like Stella when she knew she’d done a bad thing. 

“I’m in there, am I?”

“...Yes.”

“Fuck.” Phil slammed the computer closed and went back to the couch to think. 

Bozie didn’t follow him. "For what it’s worth, I really am sorry. I just wanted to know if I would be into it, and then I kept coming back. But it’s not like that! It’s not like a fetish thing, like I would search pics only for that!”

Even when Bozie couldn’t see it, Phil raised an eyebrow for that because the site was exactly for that.

“I mean, I kept visiting because I liked the idea of... You. Like that.”

Oh.

Bozie was left standing there, behind the couch, trying to figure out if Phil would invite him out of his condo now.

“Is this why you wanted me in Sports Illustrated?”

“Partly, I guess. Just, I knew the pictures would be nice, and there would be a post with tons of comments on how great you would look. And I wanted to see it.”

 _Right._ “Okay, so. I might need a moment to think about this. Let’s not talk about this until ill bring it up, clear?”

“Clear.”

Phil felt enormous and ugly and anything but sexy. The famed hormone-induced pregnancy libido that his board friends sometimes bitched about had made some appearances, but it wasn’t like he’d have any volunteers. Except maybe there was one now, whose fascination with the pregnant Phil must be compensating his ugliness or something.

Phil went to get his own computer and fired it up in his room, the door locked. He wasn’t going to go to the site, no. Instead he logged in to his anon support group, already planning a rant in his head about how hadn’t he heard about the objectification blogs before. 

***

Phil lasted only a day before he broke down in front Bozie’s anxious hovering and the offer of sex that they’d left hanging.

He grabbed Bozie and set him standing just before him. “You could get turned on by this?”

A smile slowly spread across Bozie’s face. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Phil stepped closer, almost plastering himself to Bozie’s front. He would have, except nowadays his stomach was the body part that went first, and that was just weird. 

Bozie’s eyes got dark. “Give me a minute and I can show you.” 

Seeing the genuine want that he could now believe true, Phil felt himself get turned on in only a few seconds time. Damn hormones. “Okay, yes.” He was already breathing heavy, which was ridiculous. “Bedroom?”

Bozie laughed and planted a messy kiss on Phil’s lips. “Let’s go.”

“Just, don’t touch the stomach. Or talk to the baby during, urgh.”

Bozie turned to lead them to the master bedroom. “I don’t have a pregnancy kink, Jesus.” He laughed.

Phil followed, hoping that this had been a good decision. But at that moment, he didn’t particularly care. 

They had sex, and it was sweaty and sometimes awkward and they laughed a lot in between. Phil felt cherished, and that was just what he had needed.

Afterwards they ended up cuddling, because the new pregnant edition of Phil Kessel liked it, and evidently Bozie had always liked it.

“You know it’s not just the preggers thing, right?”

 _This again._ “Right.” Frankly, now that he got his brains back, Phil still wasn’t so sure. But whatever.

“It’s not even a sex thing. It’s a you thing. I want to be here because it’s you.”

Phil didn’t know what to say to that, so he just took Bozie’s arm and pulled him to hug him from behind, wrapping the hand to his middle. “Just shut up and sleep.”

***

Getting their shit together wasn’t the only good news for them. Bozie got to the hockey news first in the next morning.

“Hey about that thing, you playing again in the NHL? That problem just fixed itself. Malkin’s pregnant.”

 _Oh shit._ What, really? “Are you shitting me?

Nope. And no way are they going to keep him off the roster forever.”

Bozie kept reading. “It says here that the Russians have already made noise about the country calling him back, though.”

“Good thing that I’m American, then. Wouldn’t be a long trip even if my country would decide to get greedy with it’s citizens.” 

That night Phil went back to his anon board, where the evening’s topic was the possible involuntary summoning of citizens. Phil had known about this after his doctor had warned him about not getting out of the country again if he got hurt in the US, but he hadn’t thought about it in a global scale. 

In theory, anyone could apply for citizenship of any country if they only managed to get into that country first. Still, no country had yet officially given completely new citizenships to single parents, though. It wouldn’t do for a country to gain a reputation of snatching other countries’ single parents. 

That didn’t stop countries from calling back their citizens abroad, though. There were rumors about people getting silent visitors from their home countries, mostly from China or India, and the single parents accompanied home under strict supervision.

Malkin would make it, whatever he wanted to do, Phil decided. He made a recommendation for the administrator to generate an invitation for Malkin to join the board.

***

With Bozie’s support, luck and his own pure will power, Phil managed to last through the end of his pregnancy without complications. Still, it was tough. Somehow sleeping, moving and eating, basically the bare essentials he needed to do to function, and something that he’d previously done without an extra thought, now ate all of his time and capacity. 

Nature had had to invent all kinds of magic to make the male bodies able to birth the babies to the world, and that magic freaking hurt. And how unfair was it that Phil had to suffer the pain of his joints loosening, when he was having a cesarean, anyway?

According to the nature’s plan he was to poop the kid out, and that meant his body making room down there in the last week of his pregnancy. It was one of those things that wasn’t much talked about, that the final days in male pregnancy were usually spent in a bathroom, trying to keep clean and not to think about it that much. 

Nature, Phil thought, standing in the shower without pants but his shirt still on, was a bitch. He’d managed to both convince his medical support that he was fine to go through this in the privacy of his own home, and Bozie to keep on the other side of the bathroom door. Maybe they were together now, but that didn’t mean that he’d want to share this.

Phil got his son trough a section, remembering nothing of it. It was a Hell No to being natural when it came to giving birth. It was heavily suggested to all single parents that they should give birth naturally and with as little medical assistance as possible, but that trend hadn’t really taken off. Maybe men were sissies, then, for taking easier options if they only were available, but hey, pain. Not a good thing. 

_Wow. The baby looked so small._ It was about the only thing Phil got to think of after he’d woken up after his surgery. The baby was healthy and supposed to look like that, Phil had been assured, but really. He’d eaten grilled chickens bigger than that. He sure looked cute, though. He had big blue eyes and he was so blond that he almost looked like he lacked eyebrows and lashes altogether. Phil wondered if he’d ever looked like that.

“What are you going to name him?” Bozie’s gaze was glued to the baby. Bozie had been there during the birth, he’d just informed their coach that he’d take a few days off and no-one had questioned it.

Bozie really were there a lot. Now that Phil thought about it, he didn’t know if he’d been at all alone with his kid yet. There was always somebody in the room. Huh.

“I’m thinking Adam, maybe?”

“Ow, that’s a really biblical name for a single kid, dude.”

 _Oh crap._ Phil looked down to the tiny baby that was now making little sniveling sounds, eyes scrunched shut. Soon he would start crying and somebody would come to take him and deal with it. “Oh man, but I already started to think him with it. He looks like Adam to me.” 

“Then go ahead. As long as it’s not Phil Junior, or like, Jesus, it’s all good.”

The kid ended up registered as Adam Joseph Kessel.

When the baby wasn’t in the room, Phil found himself constantly playing with his hospital bracelet. Or not his, but the one that he got when baby Adam was born. It was the proof of him being the one person who should get this one baby to take away with him when he’d leave the hospital. _If everything went well,_ his mind whispered. 

He’d fucking take his kid home. There was no other options. He had the receipt for him, Phil thought, rolling the additional hospital bracelet on his wrist. 

***

After a week in the hospital Phil was able to return home, baby Adam with him. The lone mandatory visit from the official Single Parent Child Services had went well, with Bozie doing most of the talking while Phil held Adam, trying not to look hostile.

One of the reasons for the child services not having anything against Phil taking Adam home, Phil suspected, was that Phil had hired a night nanny for Adam. He was a millionaire single parent and he got the need and the money, so he refused to feel bad about it. Babies weren’t meant to be cared by only one person. His mom promised again to visit and help, but with his new thing with Bozie, Phil didn’t want his mom to move in. And it wasn’t like he could have asked her to take care of the night feedings, anyway. 

So Phil had hired Nancy, a sturdy nurse and a child-care professional in her forties, to take care of Adam while he slept full nights with ear plugs on and recovered from the surgery and the pregnancy. 

In their new routine, Phil put Adam to sleep for the night. Nancy came by eleven, and for the night Phil was blissfully not responsible for his kid’s welfare. And then it was half past six in the morning again and Phil’s was on his own for the day. 

Phil had the time to check his messages only days after he’d gotten home with Adam. In the hospital he’d been too woozy from the drugs, sleeping or his attention focused entirely to his offspring, so there hadn’t really been a good time. At home the first couple of days were quite the same, except without the good drugs, and being constantly worried about breaking his kid. 

Introducing the baby to Stella had been a production that Phil had stressed more than he would ever admit. He had done as advised, first giving his sole attention to the dog, and only after that introducing the infant to Stella. 

Giving up her position (and Phil freely admitted that Stella had been the child in their little family) had been tough for Stella, and the dog understanding that any act of jealousy towards the baby would be severely punished, she ended acting out by accidentally-on-purpose relieving herself inside the apartment. 

Bozie ended up cleaning most of it. Phil was too tired and tied up with the baby to really care, so Bozie volunteered to clean up the accidents before the entire flat would smell like pee. Neither had the energy for crate training and Phil didn’t want to place Stella in a kennel to learn out of his new bad habits, so they just kept mopping the accidents and hoping that the problem would eventually ease by itself. 

It wasn’t until he found Laura-the-PR-woman standing on his front door that Phil realized that he hadn’t taken any messages from the team management since he’d left to the hospital to give birth. He’d let Bozie to take the responsibility of informing everyone, but this was something else. 

Adam was sleeping so Phil made anxious gestures about not making any sudden or loud noises and let her in. Now that he had a reason to really look at his apartment, it was embarrassing to notice how messy it had gotten in just a few days, even with Bozie helping, and with the night nurse. 

Phil glanced down at himself while he was in it. _Huh._ He was wearing old sweats, no underwear because they chafed his surgery scar, and a baby monitor clipped to his waist. His t-shirt was stretched on the front and it had a suspicious stain, hopefully not from a diaper change mishap. Phil was also pretty sure that he’d slept with these clothes and had just never gotten into changing to day wear. He’d kept himself clean shaved through his whole pregnancy because people kept thinking the sight of a pregnant man with a beard too jarring, but now he had let it go and was sporting quite a stubble. He also still looked thick in the middle. He was not an attractive sight.

Laura seemed to think so too, as she politely did not compliment his New Parent -look. “It’s great to see you up and feeling better, Phil!” Laura whispered, unsure about the appropriate volume level.

Phil answered with his new, light _kid don’t you fucking dare to wake up_ tone. “Yeah, it’s nice to be home. You want coffee?” 

Phil turned and shuffled to the kitchen, the PR-woman following him, her expensively immaculate outfit sticking out like a sore thumb among the unwashed dishes, orphan spit rags, an attention-deprived dog that Bozie had only quickly made to do its business in the roof garden’s artificial dog toilet grass before leaving for his rehearsal, and a large amount of baby crap that had been only just now fished out of their packages and hadn’t found their places yet. Laura definitely wanted something, but Phil wanted coffee.

Laura worked herself to an empty chair and made a clean spot on the table to put her iPad and phone. Phil went to the machine to start a pot. 

“So!” She started. “It’s been a week. How’s it going?”

“Good.” 

“You saw the birth announcement?” 

Phil nodded. He had seen it. It had been a standard stuff; the kid was born, it was healthy, it had a name. Totally standard, only that it was only Phil making the announcement and the _family_ wishing privacy in these delicate first days had been left intentionally vague. 

“You haven’t been in social media for a while.”

Hmm. To what issue was this non-question’s leading? “Haven’t had the time, and I don’t really care what they say.” 

“I mean, you haven’t posted anything.” 

Oh, so that’s what this was about. Phil didn’t answer but tried to locate clean coffee mugs instead.

“Most new parents post a baby pic on twitter the next day.” She paused. “Is there a reason you didn’t?” 

For a moment Phil entertained himself with a thought of the PR making crisis plans for the case of the baby being horribly ugly. 

“No reason. I looked like shit and newborns look like skinned rabbits, so I rather didn’t, and then I forgot.”

Laura’s eyes widened at the thought of Adam looking like a skinned rabbit. Honestly, he looked like a regular newborn baby, even if on a skinny side. 

“Anyway, we hope that you haven’t forgot your media narrative. Now starts the stage two, about Phil Kessel being a changed man, which will lead to stage three, the happy working father.”

“Yeah, the changed Phil Kessel.”

This was all a part of a publicity strategy which he’d accepted, technically speaking. The franchise wanted to present him as more approachable and more open to sympathy. His whole public persona needed to change. Every marketing professional knew that that couldn’t happen overnight. The gap from Phil’s previous image was just too wide to make it believable in any other way than giving it time. 

During the pregnancy Phil the coach killer had become first only just overwhelmed but determined (when they announced the pregnancy), changing to relaxed and jovial (the HBO special) and now when the kid was born, it was time for Phil-the-changed-man.

A son’s birth was the most perfect moment for the next step, but Phil had somehow completely forgotten it. 

“Sorry, I’ve been busy? So, um, happy, content and grateful, was it? And on the side, you-”, he gestured, “not me, keeps repeating to please give me respect and privacy, and no filming the kid.”

Laura was obviously pleased that Phil had skipped his previous passive aggressive relationship with the plan and decided just to go with it. She started to say something but was interrupted by the baby monitor coming alive.

She was startled by the little inquiring noises that Phil knew predicted crying in about two minutes if he wasn’t there to scoop the kid up. 

“Excuse me.” He left Laura in the kitchen and went to rescue his son (and himself) from the crying spree. 

It took only a few minutes for Phil to get his kid and come back to the kitchen to warm up Adam’s next bottle. Hmm, maybe he could install a small kitchen nook in the nursery? Like a water post and a microwave. He could always say that it would be for making the night nurse’s work easier. Why hadn’t he thought it before? 

At the meantime Laura had helped herself with the coffee. She had to put the mug down, though, since Phil handed his kid to her to free his hands to make the bottle.

“Oh!” Laura looked startled. What, had she thought that he wouldn’t want to give the kid to others? Sure he did, if that meant having two hands to do his thing faster and hopefully prevent Adam from going into a crying fit. 

At least Laura now had the time to inspect the kid and redeem him to something that looked like a regular baby, Phil mused. 

“Okay, now.” Phil took the baby back and sat down to give him the bottle. “Pour me a coffee, please?”

Laura got him a mug, and sat down to watch them, her discomfort turned to a glee. “You look very cute together, actually. I could snap a picture for twitter now?”

For some reason Phil had thought that Bozie would be the one taking the first twitter pics, like he had took the first private pictures in the hospital. But, whatever. 

Laura snapped the picture and posted it in Phil’s account, which Phil had agreed to share through Tweet Deck. The caption was something mundane, about welcoming a new family member, but the picture of him feeding Adam his bottle, them both in ratty Maple leafs merch, ended up the most shared picture of the day. 

***

The morning started with Phil changing, clothing and feeding Adam. For a few weeks after settling at home, most of the mornings had gone to Bozie, him happily helping with the baby and letting Phil take his time in shower. Lately, though, he’d waited for Phil to take the charge, or just poked Phil to wake up and relieve Nancy to go home.

Whatever. Phil would manage.

Finally Adam was satisfied enough for Phil to put him down on a baby blanket on the floor under Stella’s watchful eye, and went seek his own morning routine of coffee and news. (Thank goodness Stella had turned from a jealous sibling to an adoring guard dog in less time that it took for Phil and Bozie to fed up mopping pee.) 

His phone had started to bleep notifications at seven, so Phil went straight to hockey news, bracing himself to find something about him. And there it was. Not about him, but… “Hey Bozie, wake up! Guess who got the Winter Classic 2017!”

“Really? The Leafs?” 

“Yep, against Habs.”

“Sounds good. Go Canada, I guess.” Tyler took a moment to think about the news more, or maybe wake up. “The family skate will be a media zoo, though.”

“That’s true.” Then something dawned to Phil. “You don’t think… No way. That would be crazy.”

“For Leafs to get a Winter Classic because they want to show the miracle baby to the world?”

“That would be fucking disrespectful to the game. They want that kind of shit, they could have just put a family skate in the All Stars game, it’s for a show anyway.”

“I think that Winter Classic is still all about the game.” 

Phil didn’t know if Bozie really thought so or if he just said so to make Phil feel better.

Adam started to make small sounds, unhappy of his neglect of whooping ten minutes. The kid sure was an attention hog. Phil turned to him but Bozie was already on it. 

“But it’s all good.” The fans would love it. Phil wasn’t going to look in this particular gift horse’s mouth. 

***

Bozie had eventually eased out of his self-made parental leave, which left Phil alone with his kid of what felt like the first time. Phil knew that he waited for Adam’s naps and the night time a little too much, but those times, he felt, were the only times he could let his guard down and breathe a little. 

Why being alone with his kid didn’t feel natural? He could speak about the baby just fine, but now speaking to the baby felt like talking to a loaf of bread.

“Hey baby, are you awake? Are you tired?” Obviously Phil was going to raise him to be as great a conversationalist as he was, ha. 

The baby didn’t react. Stella came to him, knowing that it wasn’t her he was talking to, but still feeling hopeful.

“Um. Daddy loves you?” 

Baby Adam remained unimpressed.

Phil gave up and went to Google “how to talk to babies.” So, apparently the raised voice and weird intonation, plus making over exaggerated expressions, had actual reasons. Also looking the kid in the eyes was important. Phil had thought that the intonation thing was just something that women did, like when talking to cute dogs or whatever. No wonder that the baby hadn’t responded to Phil’s casual conversation tone. 

It would come. The casual affection that Bozie managed to pour to the baby with no effort, it could come. If nothing else, Phil would fucking fake it till he made it.

***

“What are you watching?”

Phil had been burping Adam, and as the little guy had settled on his shoulder, he’d just continued with the small swinging motions and an occasional back pat. Only now he did it sitting down and was trying to entertain himself at the same time. 

Phil turned the laptop so that Tyler saw the YouTube window on the screen.

“Oh, that one. That one’s good.” It was a couple of days old Steve Dangle video, where the video blogger chewed heads off of a few higher-in-the ladder sports journalists for suggesting that it should have been Phil’s obligation to get back to work and working out towards the ice the next day Adam had been born. 

“Maybe I should.”

“What? Go back to ice? Would that even be healthy for you?”

“They said in the last check-up that I was fully recovered from the surgery. Like, I wouldn’t be ripping any wounds open or anything. I wouldn’t be in NHL level for months, it’s almost a year since I played the last time, but I could start training and playing tomorrow if I wanted.”

“That sounds almost too easy.”

“Probably is, too.”

“Do you want to?” Bozie tried to deliver it with his casual voice again, but he failed. 

Phil had to take a moment to think it through. Did he want to get back, now? Pregnancy really hadn’t suited him, and that being over felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. 

On the other hand, he was now holding a new weight against his shoulder.

He wanted to skate, and he missed playing like mad. He was obviously wanted there, and Phil wasn’t sure how long his team would wait for his return, or the NHL welcome him back to play.

“If I take only one season off, I’ll still be 29 when the season begins, maybe thirty if I’ll take more.”

Phil really had talked about this with his doctors and trainers, and while it was theoretically possible to get in shape roughly by the start of the next season, it might still not work out. There simply wasn’t enough information about male pregnancy recovery in a sport performance level this high, and there definitely wasn’t any regarding professional hockey. If Phil wanted to play the next season, he’d probably have to get another nanny for Adam and make working out his only day job, and still it would be unsure if he’d have to skip part the season anyway.

But Adam was only little over a month old. Phil had condiments in his fridge that were older than Adam. Even Stella had been older than Adam was now when he got her. Phil tried to think how it would feel to leave Adam for an entire day with a nanny. The thought of a day without the responsibility of Adam’s well being was appealing, but he would also miss his little guy for sure.

“Right now? No. But I could maybe ask for an accelerated training program that I could do at home while he’s sleeping? But I think that I’ll go back to actually working when he is six months old.”

“Good. You both deserve it. And he’s sleeping, by the way.”

***

Bozie being away in rehearsals, games and trips also meant he wasn’t seeing what Phil did all days with Adam. Or rather, what he didn’t do. A few months in, Phil had perfected his routine with Adam, but he didn’t find the energy to do much else. Maybe if he’d enjoy spending time with Adam more, he would be inspired to do more. Mostly he felt frustrated. 

Phil’s self-imposed isolation came to an end when Bozie busted him for not going outside for a week. Bozie had simply kept an eye on what Phil was wearing when he left in the morning and when he got back in the evening. If he only had bothered to change after showering, Phil thought. Then they wouldn’t be now fighting over it.

“I have done all that’s needed! Don’t you dare accusing me of being a bad parent!”

“It’s not about that, and you know it. It’s about you. When was the last time you did anything fun?” 

“I don’t have time for fun! It’s easy for you to say, let’s trade places to see how good you would do!”

Bozie threw his hands up. “You have money and you have family and friends! No-one is keeping you at home but you!”

“Fuck you, you don’t know how it’s like!”

“You are a man, so freaking what! Men have been fathering children forever, it’s not a new thing!”

“It is to me!”

“Just… Just do something with your freaking kid, man. Go to a park. Take him to a lunch date as your handbag. Go skating. Do you think that I don’t see you? When you are not feeding him or trying to quiet him down, you’d rather be at your precious computer. You spend more time with Stella than Adam!”

Fuck this. It was time to go clean with Bozie, again. “At the hospital, when Adam was a few days old, a thought came to me. I thought _I love my dog more than I love my kid._ “

Bozie just looked back at him, breathing heavy from his earlier outburst, but no shock or judgement on his face.

“Not anymore, obviously, and the whole thought is crazy anyway, but I needed to say it aloud.”

“Have you ever thought that you maybe suffered from postpartum depression then?”

“Maybe I did. But you know how it was.” Pretending the whole pregnancy time that everything was just great, in the fear of the Child Services deciding you couldn’t be trusted and snatching you for the rest of the pregnancy. “Maybe I needed help, professional help, but there was no-one I could ask.”

Now Bozie just looked sad. “I was there.”

“I know, it helped, and I appreciate it. You didn’t have to-“

“I don’t want your appreciation, Phil. And of course I had to, I was there because I love you.”

Bozie loved him? “You know that we only come as a package deal, right?”

“I know, and I love your kid, too. It’s kind of scary how much, I’ve tried to keep my distance because it wouldn’t be fair to Adam if he’d grow attached and then I’d have to leave…”

“He already is, and you don’t have to.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh man. Now I feel like I let you down. I intentionally left all daddy duties to you and was like, an honorary uncle or something. Are you offering me the real position?”

“Okay, we’ll start a little smaller. Do you feel comfortable being, like, a step dad?” Phil didn’t want to scare Bozie with words like _forever_ or _adoption._ Taking it slower wouldn’t make it less real. “And, uh. Me, too.”

Bozie’s smile was dazzling, their fight forgotten. (But not solved, whispered Phil’s newfound conscience. Problems needed to be dealt with, not forgotten.) They could make this work.

***

Should they try skating? Phil was again left to his own devices with his kid, and he was determined to not spend the day on computer, Stella playing baby sitter for Adam on the floor.

Adam was early in his physical development, but that wasn’t a surprise as Phil had been too, walking at eight months and skating when he was two. Still, Phil was pretty sure that you had to walk before you could skate, and Adam didn’t do that yet, he’d just mastered sitting up, so skating was out. 

Instead he strapped the kid to his fancy black stroller and headed out. There was a children’s playground nearby, Nancy had told him about it many times. Only he had never visited there. 

It just felt so weird, him, a big man, walking by himself with baby on a stroller. He should have taken Stella, maybe that would have helped. The park he was heading, however, didn’t allow dogs. 

He sat on a park bench and parked the stroller in front of him. What now? 

This was just weird. He shouldn’t feel afraid of playing with his son in public. Had he grown over sensitive to people’s stares and media exposure? Right now no-one seemed to care, and even if they did, so what? 

There was sand box in the playground, complete with sand toys. Adam was the only kid there for the moment, so maybe they could loan them? Phil wasn’t sure about the toy etiquette in places like this. They hadn’t brought their own, it hadn’t come to Phil’s mind to bring them. (Or food or diapers, either. This was going to be a short trip, then.) He was sure that there would be sand toys somewhere in his home, unused, in a box labeled “toys, outside, from so-and-so many months, summer” or something like that. 

Adam watched with interest while Phil scooped sand to the little plastic bucket. He was supposed to talk now? What should he say? “This sand is wet, that’s why it holds together.” _Well, shit._ “Do you want a castle, Adam? Or maybe just a tower?” 

Maybe it was Phil’s questioning tone of voice, or just him mentioning Adam’s name, but the kid looked a lot more interested now, even waving his hands towards the still upturned bucket with anticipation. 

Phil turned the bucked upside down and padded the bottom with the little shovel. It felt like there should have been some kind of a phrase said at this point, but he couldn’t remember any. He would just google it later, then. He raised the bucket, revealing a lopsided sand castle underneath. 

Adam’s eyes opened wide with wonder and he giggled, reaching for the little sand creation and eventually falling on top of it. That provoked a scream laugh from the baby.

“Uh, oh, now we have to build it again, do we?”

Adam was totally into that plan. Phil settled to make a new sand creation for Adam to destroy, trying out a running commentary that satisfied them both. Maybe this playing thing wasn’t as weird as he had feared. 

 

**_Epilogue_**

Phil went through his mail. There was a new one from Laura, but he would read that tomorrow when it was his scheduled work time. The evenings were for keeping up with his personal connections. But there was another mail, too.

“Hey, I got a save-a-date for a wedding. Of… Crosby and Malkin. Huh.”

Bozie looked up from the floor where he’d been playing with Adam, looking gleeful. “That’s one way to solve the Russian thing. Maybe they’ll both play for Canada in the next Olympics.” 

“It says that the invitation is for me and... one and a half?”

“It means _bring the kid._ ”

“Sure. You want to be the whole one?”

“Of course. We’ll go as a family.”

_End._

**Author's Note:**

> This story came to me when I asked myself how society would change if men could have kids. This is one of the scenarios that I came up with. I’ve also always been fascinated by Phil’s relationship with the media, so the story is basically about it: Phil’s relationship with the public. I just cranked it up to ten with the male pregnancy plot.
> 
>  **Detailed trigger warnings:** In the fic there are issues of body autonomy and the society using power over individual’s body against his will. The story also deals with body and eating issues, mild public shaming and depression.


End file.
